Custom Publishing is a well-established practice where brands and advertisers create their own media channels. It is ‘editorialized’ content, generally produced by a third party, often departments within traditional publishing companies. The difference is that the brands and advertisers are not buying space in someone else’s media, they are creating their own.
Also known under a variety of other guises such as client or customer media, branded or corporate media and publishing, it has gained momentum under the wider catchall terms of ‘Content Marketing’, or recently ‘Brand Journalism’.
According to Rebecca Lieb, author of the recently released book Content Marketing – Think Like a Publisher, it refers to the creation and sharing of content, (either for education or entertainment,) for marketing purposes. It includes magazine publishing, as well as digital channels such as e-newsletters, video and white papers, e-books, case studies, and blogs.
Lori Rosen, Executive Director of the Custom Content Council (CCC), a U.S.-based industry group, explains its popularity. “Bottom line, good content, story telling, is what marketers are embracing, to engage, retain, and upsell – the name changes but core idea has been expanded and accepted over five years, and the last two years have been a boom time,” for content.
The Market for Content Marketing
In North America, the 12th edition of an annual survey by CCC and ContentWise, an interactive publication focused on content best practices, determined the overall market for Custom Content had increased to $40.2 billion US in 2011. In Canada, industry veteran Joseph Barbieri, founder of Bespoke Group, estimates the Content Marketing sphere to be worth $500 – 700 million, and growing.
The research showed that print continues to capture the majority of the overall spending on custom media ($23.6 billion US). The survey also indicated that video’s role is increasing, with just over half (52%) of marketers saying they now use branded video. This is a notable increase from three years ago when the survey returned 37%. Barbieri emphasized that, with video and smart phones, “a click through is very likely,” and that “consumers are very forgiving of varying production levels; there is enormous demand for video right now.”
In the U.K., branded content is a well-established fixture in magazine publishing. According to recent ABC circulation figures, six of the top ten titles last year were custom publishing entities. Custom Publishers also earned a 9.5% growth rate, year to year, while overall next circulation in the top 100 was down 1.4%. Canada’s largest circulation magazine is also custom title, ‘CAA Magazine’, with a circulation of 1.5 million.
From a late 2011 report commissioned by the APA (now CMA) survey, print remains the most common main format, used for 52% of all titles – but this is a sharp decline from 90% in 2005 and 71% in 2007 – digital media overall now account for 37% in the UK. Some analysts there expect digital to overtake print as a share of total within two years. Interestingly, it appears that print accounts for just over half of titles but attracted two thirds of revenue in 2010 (a drop from 78% in 2008).
Why Content Marketing
Increasingly, the traditional roles and responsibilities between advertisers, traditional publishing and media, and agencies are getting blurred; advertisers act like publishers, publishers are beginning to take on agency roles and agencies develop groups to function as publishers. It is changing how marketing departments are configured, and how companies communicate their messages.
In early 2010, understanding the shifts in the industry, the U.S.-based Custom Publishing Council rebranded itself as the CCC. In the UK this past June, the APA (Association of Publishing Agencies) updated its association to be the CMA (Content Marketing Association). In both cases, the move is from publishing to content – an alignment designed to better reflect the realities of marketing in a digital era. As Barbieri explains, “print is still an effective tool, but not the flavour of the month.”
However custom publishing of magazines continues to be successful for a variety of reasons—it can be economical for major advertisers to own their own channel, and even sell ad space to other advertisers. As a publisher, it allows the company better control over their brand’s exposure.
The key is that marketers are not publishing to overtly increase sales – it is designed to provide customers with information they have reached out for, answers to questions they have. Ultimately it is about creating an engaging environment where customers value the content. According to Lieb, successful content comes from an understanding that its focus needs to be around the company’s products or services – but not specifically about them.
Push and Pull Marketing
Overall consumers have taken more responsibility and control for finding information relevant to purchasing behaviours and decisions. They are reaching out to multiple sources to do research in advance of buying decisions, and these sources are not necessarily the traditional publishing media. They are finding reasonably balanced information readily available from a variety of sources.
As well, traditional media budgets have generally been shrinking in an environment where consumers’ media consumption is changing. This helps fuel Content Marketing in at least two ways – large-scale media-buying advertisers can see value in creating their own vehicle. In addition, financial pressures could cause independent publishers to scale back in some areas, creating opportunities for brands to produce content for specialty markets that are currently underserved.
At the same time, the economic and organizational barriers to becoming a publisher have been greatly reduced. There is a plethora of economical solutions available to those wishing to publish, with mainstream publishers competing with custom publishing or marketing services. On the digital side, content management systems and ‘blog engines’ like Drupal and WordPress are relatively easily available to help companies publish effectively through blogs, forums, and social networks.
Marketing in traditional media is based on a ‘push’, which provides what is considered an interruptive experience for media consumers. This outbound marketing includes TV commercials, advertisements in magazines, direct mail, and online banner ads.
In contrast, Content Marketing is considered more of a ‘pull’ approach, with the consumer searching out and pulling the content in. Companies supplying this content can see an ‘inbound marketing’ benefit; they create an environment of credibility and authority that ultimately builds engagement and trust.
Transparency
To be successful, the content should be useful to the readers and objective, with a minimum of traditional advertising. However if the marketer is now the publisher, or the publisher now has direct access to the marketing department, the independence of editorial content is questionable.
Barbieri explains that content marketing needs to be transparent: “it is overt … most [custom titles] are ‘opt-ins’. Readers have said ‘I want to receive the content’.” Rosen reiterates, “the content has to be compelling. For example Fidelity on financial planning can’t just be hawking products.”
Examples
B2B marketers are generally big proponents of the technique. According to a study commissioned by HiveFire (a company which develops content management software) 82% of B2B marketers used content marketing. This agrees with numbers from the content marketing Institute (CMI), who state that 90% of B2B brands are in the content marketing space, and devote approximately a quarter of their overall marketing budgets to it.
A study by the Altimeter Group earlier this year highlighted the story of Indium Corp., an international solder supplier, who tasked sixteen of their engineers to create 73 different blogs on different solder topics (gleaned from web analytics which told them what terms were bringing people to their site). According to the study, these blogs were responsible for a 600% lift in customer contacts in just one quarter.
Retailers with brand CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or loyalty programs are big proponents of Content Marketing. In Canada, Kraft’s What’s Cooking, Shoppers Drug Mart’s Glow, and recent entrant Juice, supported by Loblaws, are three examples.
Red Bull is held up as an example of a success story. In addition to The Red Bulletin, a global print magazine, they also offer content on iTunes, have a record label, and interestingly from a content perspective, they also have RedBullContentPool.com a stock agency style site that offers thousands of videos, stills and stories.
ROI
Content Marketing projects, like any major initiative benefit from a buy-in by senior management at the outset. The project should start with clearly defined objectives as a reference to measure progress against: brand exposure, increasing sales, or building a contact list are all options.
Directly measuring the return on investment for Content Marketing can be difficult. For large-scale brands, the ongoing cost of publishing a periodical can be balanced against savings on monthly media buys, as well as any incremental revenue from selling advertising space. For smaller-scale organizations, however, making a direct connection between branded content and sales is difficult, especially if it is part of an integrated campaign.
Barbieri continues, “how you measure the success of the program goes back to its reason – driving sales, awareness, moving perceptions, growing new customers, retaining existing ones. How you measure ROI is fundamentally connected to what needs the project is designed to address on the front end.”
Publishers can use reader surveys and focus groups to measure the relative success of a program. Traditional publications and direct mail can be measured using subscription rates or newsstand sales, as well as response rates to special offers or contests. Companies can track activity around the release of content, sales and the increase in contacts,
The CMI also suggests measuring the relative success of content programs through tracking the sales lift of those who receive the content program compared to those who do not. Other techniques include online reader studies to help gauge impact, measuring time that readers spend on your site, as well as post awareness studies.
On the digital side, social networks can be measured in terms of defacto or ‘proxy’ ROI, such as followers and likes. As well, digital media can be used to offer readers desired content, but only after the user provides valuable contact information, which can be used for lead generation.
Keys to Success
According Lieb, adopting Content Marketing can require a shift in company culture, resources, budgets, partners, and strategy. She explains that ‘rebalancing’ is critical to achieve these goals, and there are ideas that brands and companies should understand in order to help their programs be a success:
• First, there needs to be an understanding that it is not free. While it can reduce advertising media spend, it needs to be understood that producing effective content requires support. Barbieri sees a trend in larger companies of “hiring to drive internal content [and] the advent of a Chief Content Officer,” as signs of a “shifting mindset from advertising to engaging content.” Content Marketing is not meant to be a replacement for advertising, it should be used in combination with it to help build brand awareness.
• Next, build support within your organization outside of the marketing department. Include education and training in the skills required for digital initiatives.
• Lastly, Lieb recommends “avoiding bright, shiny objects,” having found that many marketers seem to be distracted by channels and technologies, at the expense of strategy and basic marketing fundamentals.
Content Anxiety
While Rosen understands “the content is the easy part, convincing marketing to make the investment is the hard part,” research indicates that many marketers feel the content part of Content Marketing can be daunting.
An important first step is listening. Companies and brands need to understand the questions their audience is asking, in order to respond with content that will be valued. Carefully crafted questions need to be asked to uncover further details, which will ultimately help raise the quality of the content that is delivered.
A good next step is to develop separate ‘personas’ for your target audiences – representations based on research and interviews. Understand the questions you are going to answer for these groups. This helps the content authors to focus, and acts as a guide for cross-channel communications.
Content developed for these groups can come from internal sources and across different functional departments, not just marketing. Testimonials and case studies from existing clients are valuable. These can take the form of videos, or be expanded into whitepapers. Surveys can be used and information can be mined and repurposed from existing client databases.
Rosen explains a next step is to “build an editorial calendar [and] hire an editor,” if necessary. Journalists and other professionals are also available for hire, to help generate polished material. contently.com is an example of one of the many online services offering support for content strategy, as well as tools for editorials and engagement tracking, as well as freelance writers.
Next, plans should be made for which channels to distribute on, however “channels come later,” according to content media blogger Joe Pulizzi, CMI founder. “You don’t have to be anywhere right now if you don’t want. It’s important to know exactly what you’re going to do there.”
Integrated Channels
It is important that content be designed with reuse in mind, so that it can be repurposed across different platforms. Rosen explains an approach that can include online integration with a glossy quarterly, “taking some of that [content], and making it web-ready with links, social media, tweets, and a Facebook page. Repurposing in different channels [focusing on a] broader way to distribute,” the content that has been developed.
The Social media sphere is garnering extensive attention of late, in part because of the high relative value placed on earned media (or free media, usually associated with user generated content, likes, shares, and comments) by marketing departments.
However there are significant questions from brands and agencies as to the actual value to be placed on social media; witness GM’s recent well-publicized pull out from advertising on Facebook, contrasted with McDonald’s wide embracing of Twitter.
Brands opening up to the opportunities for negative comments and publicity from consumers obviously scare some retailers. Barbieri emphasizes that it’s a “nascent part of marketing … but evolving and changing quickly on an almost daily basis. It’s about embracing a level of innovation and change.” He suggests companies “dive in, get their feet wet [so long as it can be] mapped back strategically.” It’s vital to keep momentum in social media. “Brands can’t engage and leave readers hanging. There has to be an ongoing curation mindset and engagement in the social space.”
Content Curation
Content curation has come to the forefront as a support mechanism for the problem of trying to generate content. Once companies have identified their audiences, they can take on the responsibility for sourcing relevant content for that group, finding articles and posts and creating a collected resource of valuable links.
It is popular to share links to useful information, according to research conducted by AOL and Nielsen – almost one-quarter of all social media messages and one-half of industry-specific social messages contain links to content.
Different methods of curation can be applied; companies can choose to parse down larger pieces of content to highlight the relevant themes. They can also offer points and counterpoints to discussions, and help analyze and identify emerging trends or build timelines around topics.
Curation proponent Pawan Deshpande (founder of HiveFire’s Curata Content Marketing software) breaks it into basic steps:
• To start, first identify the topic(s) relevant to your audience that you want to be an authority on, and gauge competition on this. Find the best sources of info on this topic, and follow these outlets (email, Twitter or news feeds) – focus on the 5-10 most relevant articles, posts and tweets daily.
• Next, organize and segment the content, taking into account that readers may not be interested in each link. Categorize it along your product or customer base so it’s easy to find. It is also worth putting in place a structure and repository for it; over time, it will develop into a valuable archive.
• Lastly, share the information with your audience. It should be updated regularly to help reinforce your reputation as a valued source. The content can be printed, posted on corporate sites, or shared in an e-newsletter, or on social networks.
Curation is a shortcut that reduces the effort for original copy, and when hosted online it also helps with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO refers to the tactics people use in order to improve their website’s ‘ranking’ in search results. Google and other engines are regularly modifying their algorithms in an effort to return the reader the most likely matches, and therefore help ensure the user returns to that particular engine.
From a Content Marketing perspective, it is important that sites are optimized as well as possible, with titles clearly identified and keywords strategically selected (and not overused). Having links into your site from other sites helps, but most importantly the site needs to provide valuable content. When search engine algorithms change, they are often updates that address tactics some publishers use to ‘game the system’.
Barbieri believes the recent changes (‘Panda’ and ‘Penguin’) to Google’s algorithms are positive, with a shift to favouring sites that have quality over quantity, while those sites designed to artificially increase search results are quickly fading.
Conclusion
Print leads the charge in terms of use and revenues and while studies show digital content (other than websites) has been the single most important category of growth in the last three years (e-newsletters, microsites, apps), Barbieri feels that print “still needs to be part of spectrum,” and sees a quiet shift back to print on the horizon. It is important to be “cognizant of buzz around technologies and platforms,” but targeted and used properly, print is a powerful medium, especially in the retail sector.
Content marketing is an evolution of journalism and marketing that companies can use in combinations with regular media advertising to communicate with customers, to help answer their questions, build brand awareness and ultimately, hopefully, market share.
For more information, Marketing Magazine (www.marketingmag.ca) is hosting their inaugural Branded Content Conference on Sept. 12th in Toronto, and promises exclusive Canadian custom content research.
